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Kamala Harris delivered a searing indictment of Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office, warning in her first major address since leaving office that the nation was experiencing a “wholesale abandonment of America’s highest ideals”.
Speaking to a crowd of Democrats in San Francisco, the former vice-president struck a defiant posture as she praised the leaders and institutions pushing back against the president and his agenda – from the members of Congress acting boldly to the judges “who uphold the rule of law in the face of those who would jail them”, the universities defying the administration’s “unconstitutional demands”, and the everyday Americans rallying to protect social security.
The speech – her most forceful since Trump’s return to power – marked a reemergence for Harris. The former vice-president, who now lives in Los Angeles, is weighing a possible run for California governor next year or another bid for the presidency in 2028, and has mostly kept a low profile since leaving office in January following her devastating loss to Trump in November.
In her remarks, she accused the new administration of deliberately sowing fear and chaos to consolidate his own executive power, in a “high velocity” start to his presidency that has pushed the country to the brink of a constitutional crisis.
“They are counting on the notion that, if they can make some people afraid, it will have a chilling effect on others,” she said. “But what they’ve overlooked is that fear isn’t the only thing that’s contagious. Courage is contagious.”
Urging Americans to keep organizing, running for office and standing up for fundamental rights and values, she declared: “Let’s lock it in.”
Wednesday’s event served as a poignant coda for Harris as she plots her political future. Delivering the keynote address at the 20th anniversary gala for Emerge America in at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, Harris, a Bay Area native and the nation’s first female vice-president, paid tribute to its work recruiting and training Democratic women to run for office. It was Harris’s early success running for San Francisco district attorney in 2003 that inspired the group, its president said in a speech.
The crowd included Democratic donors, candidates and elected officials, among Eleni Kounalakis, the lieutenant governor of California and former California Congresswoman Katie Porter, both of whom are running for governor.
“We need to get more of the alpha energy back with women,” said attendee Connie Price, referencing a quote from Michigan senator Elissa Slotkin. “We have to get less kumbaya and more solutions oriented and women are plenty capable of that.”
In her remarks, Harris argued that the chaotic start to Trump’s second term was by design, laid out in the conservative policy blueprint Project 2025.
“Please, let us not be duped into thinking everything is chaos,” she said. “What we are, in fact, witnessing is a vessel being used for the swift implementation of an agenda that has been decades in the making.”
During the campaign, Trump sought to distance himself from the unpopular initiative but his actions as president follow the plan closely – from his chainsaw approach to downsizing the federal government to his war on diversity, equity and inclusion policies and “gender ideology”. Trump’s “reckless” tariffs were “clearly inviting a recession”, Harris said, adding, with a subtle reference to her campaign trail warnings, “as I predicted”.
She did not, however, get more personal, despite plenty of avenues to do so.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration fired Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff other senior Biden White House officials from the board that oversees the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Earlier this month, the law firm where Emhoff works reached a deal with the White House to avert an executive order targeting its practice. Emhoff was said to have advised against the agreement, and Harris in remarks days later, seemed to obliquely address the situation, warning that “we are seeing those that are capitulating to clearly unconstitutional threats”.
But the self-described “joyful warrior” also left room for hope. She commended leaders whose dissent has galvanized the public, including Democratic senators Cory Booker, who delivered a record-breaking 25-hour speech to show resistance to Trump, and Chris Van Hollen, who secured a visit with a man wrongly deported to El Salvador by the administration, as well Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who have been drawing crowds thousands-strong across on their cross-country Stop Oligarchy tour.
After the speech ended, attendees filed out of the ballroom, chatting while they parsed Harris’ pithy speech.
Attendee John Glass said he liked the parts of Harris’ speech that were about how the country is in a constitutional crisis and how courage is contagious.
“She was on fire. I thought it was going to be more of a perfunctory speech, it was anything but that,” he said. “I wish she sounded like she did tonight on the campaign.”
Jennifer Wise and Carol Horton walked out debriefing the evening. Wise said, “It was nice to see her back.” And Horton said Harris’ speech “was a commentary for the moment”, adding that she’s looking forward to her decision on whether she’ll run again for either governor of California or for president again in 2028.
The former state attorney general and US senator from California is expected to decide by the end of summer whether to join the crowded field of Democrats vying to succeed California’s term-limited governor, Gavin Newsom.
A successful campaign to lead the country’s largest blue state would give her a prominent platform from which to challenge Trump and his attacks on Democratic states. Or Harris could choose to mount another presidential.
Meanwhile, she has continued fundraising through the Harris Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee her presidential campaign set up with the Democratic National Committee and state Democratic parties.
